Planet Ideas And Names For The Future Of Kerbal Space Program

[Castille7]

Planet/Moon with thick atmosphere that heavily obscures vision would be cool (challenging landings).

I love this idea, Obscured Vision to make it difficult making adjustments during the flight and missions

[Castille7]

As of now we have probably landed on all planets and moons of all sizes and shapes due to jebediah. but we still have 2 gas giants to go and some planets and the asteroid belt to go. What Color, shape, Size, Or moons Should it have, should we have an earth sized planet with tons of moons or what. What do you all think? post all of your ideas.

I am new to Kerbal and haven't been to all the current planets, if one doesn't already consist of mostly liquids and very little solids to land on I think that would make it challenging to land on and fun at the same time. Also one with many obstructions and small amounts of landing space.

[Castille7]

How about "Labrek" for a planet name? it's Kerbal spelt backwards

[TJPrime]

Here are my planet suggestions, along with a description if it is ever to be implemented into the game:

Planets:

Zevis: An average sized gas planet (about 4,000 km in radius) that is a very light blue planet. It has also got some faint rings - you need to have Zevis in an eclipse with the sun for you to see them (maybe?). Zevis is the only planet to spin backwards that kerbal-kind know of.

Kosuno: This planet is meant to be a gas planet, however it is rocky - suggesting it is made of a very light material. The planet is very large (about 2,000km radius and has about 13G). Many kerbals have speculated if this is the new home for a new, evolved kraken - known as the 'Kutov' that can destroy ships if they venture too close to it's territory.

Moons (the planet the moon is orbiting is in brackets)

Sevis (Zevis): Thought to be Zevis at the time, kerbals discovered this moon in a new, high powered telescope. They were disappointed, as they thought it could see smaller and more distant objects. The moon is as blue as Zevis, but has a terrain and a faint atmosphere (almost a vacuum at the surface)

Soria (Zevis): This moon has shown great potential as a future home for kerbals if 'kobal warming' gets out of hand. It has the largest impact crater in the Kerbol system (about 30-40% of the surface is one, giant crater), which kerbals use to call the 'kerbalist lake in the solar system', until radar images showed it to be a massive crater. What created this crater is unknown. The atmosphere is about as thin as duna's and contains ~10% oxygen

Tolara (Zevis): The smallest moon in the kerbal system (about 5 km in radius, while Gilly is 13 km), the fact kerbals discovered this moon is a 100% mystery (apart from the fact that they saw it). Not much is known about this moon, so any mission her would receive more science than any other place in the kerbal system. The surface is very gravely and kerbals can sink into it if they're not careful.

Havis (Zevis): This moon is only slightly smaller than Gilly (12km), but has double the gravity (Havis: 0.01g, Gilly: 0.005g). Like it's sister moon, Tolara, Havis has not been very researched and any mission would get tonnes of science. The surface is similar to Bop's surface.

Ashyke (Kosuno): Ashyke is very large (about 200km radius). It is the smallest moon in the kerbal system to have an atmosphere that is detectable. It's surface is very flat and can be completely underwater at times.

Vamia (Ashyke): Yes, a moon with a moon. According to kerbal knowledge, this moon shouldn't be here. They suspect it could be a Kraken egg - or even a Kutov egg. Either way, this is a very dangerous moon (about 6km radius)

Zanus [pronouncaed 'Zan-us'] (kosuno): Many teenage kerbals make jokes about 'Zanus'. It may not have the best name and may have been discovered by kerbals on beer, but it is a 'proud' moon, in that it has... well, not very much, except an underground structure (easter egg? like bop's cave thing I've heard about?). Inside these structures are evendence of DNA to a life form similar to Kerbals. Could this moon be the origin of life on Kerbin? Jeb will have to wait and see what he can find in these structures. (Can I have my initials - TJP - carved into the structures if it's put in? Please?)

Ok, those are my ideas. I think most of those names are quite good for planets and moons. If any of those are put in, I will be so happy - even if the surfaces of the planets and moons are completely different to what I've suggested

Edited January 29, 2014 by TJPrime
To make 'Zanus' sound less inappropriate

[NWM]

Some other dwarf planet on the orbit of Dres - like there is some on the orbit of Ceres (Juno,Vesta...16 Psyche). A 16 Psyche like remained iron core could be interesting.

[Jupiter02]

GP4 can be named as Arin which is roughly the size of jool and has 2 major moons Mul and Stov

Arin looks like a barren planet

Mul is a lava planet which is extremly difficult to land on

Stov is just like laythe but with more green land and maybe plants

[Fixr]

Right now they're really just different colored spheres of varying sizes.

Thats... Kinda what a planet is.

[Spanier]

Gas giant with captured ice giant far out, both have rings and inner moons.

Gas giant is inclined about 30-40°, ice giant has nearly retrograd orbit to primary's equator, but is inclined bout 90° to the ecliptic.

Asteroid barely outside of Jools roche-limit (SOI = 110% of its radius)

Anyway, I'm currently doing some stability analysis on Jool in real life scale:

I assumed some altered masses:

Jool: ~2 jupiter

Laythe: ~0.12 earth

Vall: ~0.07 earth

Tylo: ~0.18 earth

Basically i scalled down Laythe and Tylo and scalled up Jool and Vall.

This made Vall more stable against Laythe and Tylo, since it now had comparable mass. Jool didn't scale up to 8 jupiters, since this would pretty much break the fun of the system,

BUT

the 1:2:4 Laplace-resonance relies on the strong gravitational force from the primary, so the galilean moons around RL jupiter have nearly perfectly circular orbits. Lowering this force to about 25% causes the resonance to oscillate between a case preventing, and one causing a triple-conjunction, so basically all resonance variables circulated through all angels, instead of librating around certain values, as they do in the case of the galilean moons (except for θ₄). Additionally the eccentrity of both Vall and Laythe reached ridiculous levels of up to 26% for Vall and 18% for Laythe.

Conclusion:

Either Jool needs to be HUGE, or Laythe, Vall and Tylo are too big for a 1:2:4 resonance, so I'm testing other resonances

4:6:9 - Nearly killed Vall instantly

1:3:9 - Vall slightly moves out of the resonance, freeing additional resonance variables, but eccentry stays stable

1:2:6 - Vall gets some eccentrity, but it's rather stable, and the resonance variables only librate around certain values

For all of you wondering where things like orbital period or semi-major axis stay:

Defining the distortion level D as the quotient of the acceleration from the primary a₀ and the acceleartion from the second body a₂, we see, that this only relies on the ratio of the masses m₂/M and the third root of the square of the resonance value.

Edited February 4, 2014 by Spanier

[Ketsa]

Just a few planets ?

No, no, no !

I want to see KSP playable in an entire Universe, like SpaceEngine for exemple.

Problem solved.

[Spanier]

Just a few planets ?

No, no, no !

I want to see KSP playable in an entire Universe, like SpaceEngine for exemple.

Problem solved.

Ok, if someone would manage to implement the procedural terain generation into KSP, he should recieve the Nobel-Price for Informatics!

That doesn't exist? THEN CREATE IT!!!

[Whirligig Girl]

Eve: Heated atmosphere similar to old Moho.

- Minor Moons At least 4 more Gilly-sized moons all rhyming with the word Gilly.

Dresteroid Belt: A belt of asteroids near the SMA of Dres.

Jool: Actually the second-smallest gas giant, with unusually large moons. All other gas giants would have objects smaller than or comparable to Moho.

- Laythe: Very volcanic because of its proximity and the tidal forces from the other moons. Still oceans of water, but now with actual active volcanos with lava lakes (that destroy things)

- Vall: Never liked the design of vall too much. I'd like to make it a bit more like eeloo, with large cracks in the ice and a more chaotic surface.

- Tylo: Never liked this either, also needs to be redone. Perhaps turned into a highly-contrasting body like Iapetus.

- More tiny moons: Just a bunch of small moonlets, at least 20. Probably would be nameable by the player or given designations (ex. 1/31 Jool-17 for the 17th moon of Jool discovered in the year 1 in day 31)

Bool: ~50% larger than Jool, with rings. Early version shown on a stream a while ago.

- Eeloo: Relocated to orbit GP2, now with large geysers that can knock your ship around (prototyped several weeks ago, they function quite well)

- Daphy: Unusually smooth and round ball of fluff. An asteroid which has accumulated material from the rings, practically no gravity.

- Potatus: Small moon with relatively high inclination relative to GP2's equator. Composed of ices surrounding a highly dense core. Very rapid rotation (21 minutes) causes it to be stretched into an oblate spheroid (prototyped a while ago, the physics actually work and are really cool)

- Fonso: Largest moon, ~300 km radius. Very mountainous, with a thick atmosphere that only extends partway up the mountains (as in, the mountain peaks are in vacuum, while the proper surface is at two atmospheres)

- Tiny moons: Same case as Jool

Dool: Gas planet with huge rocky core...

- Bloalif: Moon of GP3, Highly eccentric going to just above the Roche Limit of GP3 to the very edge of the SOI. Volcanic only when it approaches peripasis.

- Komar: A captured comet in a low orbit around GP3.

- Vomitar: A cryovolcanic moon, orbiting in a highly inclined orbit.

- Hoaf: Frozen, smooth body with a equatorial bulge, similar to Iapetus.

- Puff: A little puffball similar to Daphy that is a bit larger and denser.

Cool: The same size as GP3, more or less, but a deep shade of red.

- Tiffar: Retrograde orbit, looks similar to Bluto.

- Gorpheus: Very dark colored moon of GP4, Small but very dense.

- Nixi: Orange-brown asteroid orbiting Gorpheus.

- Biff: Bluish moon orbiting just outside GP4's Roche limit.

Bluto: Named after the element Blutonium (IT powers the RTGs, read the description), replaces Eeloo as the furthest planet from the Sun.

- Tophin: Large moon orbiting Bluto, a little smaller than Ike, but much closer.

- Kerberous: A asteroid in a captured orbit (Named after the Plutonian moon Cerberus, which can also be spelled Kerberos.)

- Kick: A small moon in a large, perfectly circular orbit around Bluto.

Heheli: An extremely far out object that it 3 times further from the Sun as GP4 is, at PERIAPSIS. At apoapsis, it is 20 times further away.

Loolbol: Circular inclined orbit around the Sun, near the periapsis of Heheli, it's a Brown Dwarf. All moons are discovered by the player, as they could never be seen by telescope, but three planets are known due to seeing it wobble.

- Dumik: A planet orbiting Loolbol. It has an atmosphere.

- Ronbol: Dead home planet of the Drake race, the placer of the easter eggs.

-- Run: a metallic moon of Run with almost the same orbital parameters around Ronbol as the Mun to Kerbin. It is a totally artificial moon with trenches and it looks like a laser-less Death Star.

Kerber Belt: A belt of comets and Blutoids discovered mostly by the player, starts from the SMA of GP4 and ends at the Pe of Heheli.

Oops Cloud: A sphere of comets and asteroids that starts at the altitude of the Ap of Heheli and ends a single KerbinAU above that. A few comets come from up there.

Comets: Discovered and designated based on one of the first Kerbals to enter the SOI of it or to have the map view focus on it, or if it's a probe or all Kerbal names on the ship are used, a random Kerbal name will be generated. (Jebidiah's Comet)

Blutoids: Randomly generated names. (Herling, Nolob, etc)

Asteroids: Named by the player when map view focuses on it or a ship enters it's SOI. Option to randomly generate name or have discovery date (Untitled Asteroid 1, 1/65 1)

Moonlets: Named by discovery date and in order of distance to planet. 1/78=year one, day seventy eight in the space program. (3/321 Jool-57, 1/78 Eve 3)

[Spanier]

Ok, now here's my overall suggestions:

Randomization on all values

New planets have random names

Moho: Radius increased, tenuous atmosphere added, closer to sun, bound rotation

Eve: Radius increased, surface pressure raised to ~100bar, axial tilt ~90°

- Gilly: Eccentrity decreased to ~35%, radius tremendously decreased, density increased, more potatoe shaped

Kerbin: 10% version of Earth (including axial tilt)

- Mun: 10% version of Luna

- Minmus: Deleted (could actually be reused as a new object)

Duna: Surface pressure shrinked to ~50mbar, orbits around barycenter, axial tilt ~30°

- Ike: Surface redone, radius increased

Dres: Radius decreased, surface redone

Bidaq: Minor planet, rotating at ~80% orbital velocity, high oblateness

More Asteroids

Jool: Radius raised to ~120%, mass raised to ~1000%, added rings, resonance of major moons set to 1:3:9

- Laythe: Mass and radius set to ~70%, surface pressure raised >2bar, surface redone (ocean with just a few active volcano islands, may be spare vegetation)

- Vall: Density raised to ~120%, surface redone (ice crust)

- Tylo: Radius shrinked to ~75%, density shrinked to ~60%, surface redone (features large impact craters)

- Bop/Pol: Moved outwards, higher inclination, more potatoe shaped, very small

- Ambruc: Small asteroid moon within rings (gap), just outside of the roche-limit

- More irregular moons

Trevux: Second gas giant (biting yellow), ~15% Jool mass, ~80% Jool radius, more rings then Jool (dark), axial tilt ~20°

- Ring Moonlets

- Nahiko: Small icy moon with cryovolcanism, radius <50km, density <12g/cm³, tenuous atmosphere, in a 1:2 resonance with Kalbo

- Kalbo: Large moon, radius ~250km, density <20g/cm³, surface pressure ~0.5 bar, multiple lakes, trailing hemisphere features large volcanoes rising into the upper atmosphere, leading hemisphere is quite featureless and flat

- Gujifar: Small icy moon, radius <100km, features little ring system

- Irregular moons

Jofur: Huge gas giant, >3 Jool masses, ~1 Jool radius, mainly white with some colored stripes (purple, orange), nearly retrograde rotation >150°, small ring system (orange-ish)

- Ring Moonlets

- Kinart: Captured ice giant, ~20 Kerbin masses, ~250km radius, orbit nearly retrograde to primary's equator but nearly rectangular to ecpliptic, small ring system, dark blue with lots of storms

- - Ring Moonlets

- Irregular moons

Ilgaro: Ice giant, ~12 Kerbin Masses, ~250km radius, medium ring system, light blue with purple stripes, axial tilt ~40°

- Ring Moonlets

- Some Moons

- Irregular moons

Eeloo: Density lowered to <22g/cm³, big ring system added

- Debris disc: Lots of small moons, maybe also a bigger one, created by recent impact

Edited February 2, 2014 by Spanier

[Bartybum]

I had an idea for a larger but more desolate system than Kerbol system.

Star: Hyperion

Slightly larger than Kerbol, roughly 120% its mass, bluish tinge

Planet 1: Aeion

Hot atmospheric desert, brown & tan, few craters

-Radius: 400km

-SMA: 6500000km

-Eccentricity: 0.14

-Inclination: 5°

-Satellites: 2

--Bor

--- Rocky desert, dusty, ~size of Pol, SMA ~10000km, ecc 0.1, inc 3°, grey & brown

--Carp

--- Rocky desert, dusty, 50% size of Pol, SMA ~35000km, ecc 0.2, inc 10°, grey

Planet 2: Ranley

Temperate atmospheric oceania, blue, no surface features

-Radius:890km

-SMA: 21500000km

-Eccentricity: 0.04

-Inclination: 0.3°

-Satellites: 3

--Tellyk

--- Temperate selena, lightly cratered, ~size of Mun, SMA ~15000km, ecc 0.05, inc 4°, tan & orange

--Merl

--- Temperate selena, mountainous, cracked + craters, ~size of Bop, SMA ~21000km, ecc 0.1, inc 3.2°, brown & grey

--Sine

--- Temperate atmospheric terra, thick atmosphere, mostly flat, ~size of Duna, SMA ~40000km, ecc 0.12, inc 12°, orange & yellow & brown + reddish ocean

Planet 3: Uletis

Cold gas giant, red, three large storms, thin ring system

-Radius: 7900km

-SMA: 75400000km

-Eccentricity: 0.07

-Inclination: 1.6°

-Ring system thickness/SMA: 600km (begin) & 750km (end)

-Satellites: 4

--Caldera

--- Warm volcanic terra, average atmosphere (like Kerbin), lightly cratered & somewhat mountainous + multiple lakes, ~size of Laythe, SMA ~65000km, ecc 0.01, inc 0.2°, brown & tan + blue lakes

--Arren

--- Cold ice world, thin atmosphere, streaked & cratered & somewhat mountainous, ~size of Duna, SMA ~97000km, ecc 0.05, inc 0.6°, white & brown & dark grey

--Selene

--- Cold desert, very thin atmosphere, cratered & dusty & medium mountain ranges + small ice caps, ~size of Duna, SMA ~159000km, ecc 0.11, inc 5°, orange & tan & brown & white

--Riley

--- Cold selena, heavily cratered, ~size of Dres, SMA ~213000km, ecc 0.3, inc 25°, dark grey

Planet 4: Garimene

Frozen ice giant, thick atmosphere, blue-green, no visible surface features

-Radius: 3300km

-SMA: 127700000km

-Eccentricity: 0.23

-Inclination: 15°

-Satellites: 1

--Cythone

--- Frozen ice world, thin atmosphere, smeared with dirt and ice, ~size of Eeloo, SMA ~59000km, ecc 0.5, inc 30°, dark grey & brown and white

Edited February 2, 2014 by Bartybum
Added more planets

[kiwi1960]

Lets get more Earth like... a few planets or moon... asteroids?

Wiht names like

Carl Sagan

Neil Armstrong

I'd love an asteroid named after a politician so we can nuke it to death.

[Bartybum]

Lets get more Earth like... a few planets or moon... asteroids?

Wiht names like

Carl Sagan

Neil Armstrong

I'd love an asteroid named after a politician so we can nuke it to death.

I'm making a system based on current capabilities of the game engine which the devs are using (with exception to Uletis), so I don't yet want to add asteroids.

In regards to the names, currently none of the names, as far as I know, (apart from Eve) are in common English.

[Spanier]

*SNIP*

So you want to have a new star system with a bunch of suicidal planets

Look at your eccentrities, thats not a star system, that's a asteroid throwing cluster-bomb

[i8jello]

How about Nibrek, a large planet with a few holes that lead into an inner gigantic cavern with an atmosphere like Kerbin's that is about the same temperature and has liquid water. It also is covered in green plants.

The outside has huge lava lakes and lava geysers.

[kiwi1960]

^^^^^ Someone has been watching too many sci-fi movies....

Nice idea....

[Dolphin772]

Could you please add a laythe like planet but it's habitable

. .

Ãâ€

[Ethan3369]

Heheli: An extremely far out object that it 3 times further from the Sun as GP4 is, at PERIAPSIS. At apoapsis, it is 20 times further away.

Loolbol: Circular inclined orbit around the Sun, near the periapsis of Heheli, it's a Brown Dwarf. All moons are discovered by the player, as they could never be seen by telescope, but three planets are known due to seeing it wobble.

- Dumik: A planet orbiting Loolbol. It has an atmosphere.

- Ronbol: Dead home planet of the Drake race, the placer of the easter eggs.

-- Run: a metallic moon of Run with almost the same orbital parameters around Ronbol as the Mun to Kerbin. It is a totally artificial moon with trenches and it looks like a laser-less Death Star.

Kerber Belt: A belt of comets and Blutoids discovered mostly by the player, starts from the SMA of GP4 and ends at the Pe of Heheli.

Oops Cloud: A sphere of comets and asteroids that starts at the altitude of the Ap of Heheli and ends a single KerbinAU above that. A few comets come from up there.

Comets: Discovered and designated based on one of the first Kerbals to enter the SOI of it or to have the map view focus on it, or if it's a probe or all Kerbal names on the ship are used, a random Kerbal name will be generated. (Jebidiah's Comet)

Blutoids: Randomly generated names. (Herling, Nolob, etc)

Were going to need a bigger time warp.

[diomondclaw]

I would like to see a Ice giant sometime in the future. I don't know specifics

[Oskar-]

Toroid planets seem to be physically viable, which basically means that there are bound to be lots of them out there somewhere.

In the Kerbal system perhaps?

One of those puppies having a moon with a really whacky orbit would be incredibly cool!

[Squatch]

My vote is on a Uranus inspired planet, complete with an approximately 90 degree axial tilt, and a ring to match, either in a nice cool blue color, or a mix of lighter grays at the poles, and different blues and purples banding with the intermittent green.

To finish off the Uranus feel, at least 4-10 moons of varying size, composition and gravitational authority.

The final addition would be to have one of the moons carry a small caught asteroid kind of like the magic boulder (but larger, non magical, and able to be landed on) and some type of resonance so you can catch a beautiful planetoid alignment that just happens to either create a line in the night sky, or has the cool backdrop of the surface of the planet.

Call the planet Veril...

that's my $0.02

[ReptilianGameplays]

'bout dem uranus idea 'n sheez bro

Hm, 'k but we're missin' somethin' here. Axial tilts are somethin' non-existant in the kerbol system. We need science for that!

[Strikerklm96]

Nogl: REALLY Large, like the size of properly scaled Kerbin, ~2.5g's, somewhere between Jool and Dres. Average Atmos

Exo: Really small planet ~0.2g's of gravity, twice the distance of Eeloo's orbit. No Atmos

Gokon: Kerbin sized, ~1.1g's, in clockwise(reverse) orbit around sun. Average Atmos + Oxygen for Space-Planes.

Also, LOL Toroidial planets, I would be up for that, (it might not be possible with the engine though)